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Saturday, September 19, 2015

We Bought a Farm: Keeping it real

Whenever people comment on this blog or tell me why they read, their reason usually surrounds the fact that I keep it real.

I tell it how it is.

I don't pretend I am something I am not.

And that is mostly true.

This Blog is still, a picture that I paint. And I can choose to paint it however I want to paint it.

There are many things I leave out.

I don't, often, tell you about the huge fight my husband and I had over something that I can't even remember what it is right now.

I don't, often, tell you about the moments that I completely blew my cork with one of my children for something that I can't even remember what it is right now.

I choose the pictures I paint.

(My paint is words.)

But may I just say, with the words I paint with today, that sometimes, it just feels kinda hard.

The last few days, I have felt a little overwhelmed.

We are hosting a Conference at our farm next week. There are 30 strangers coming to hear a leading permaculture voice speak on some topic that I have little to no interest in but they care enough about that there is a waiting list and people are emailing JB and asking if they could please just stand for the entire two days in the back of our garage that we already think we have taken up every square inch of.

The Conference preparations are coming together well. Dad is handling construction. Mom and I are handling food. JB is handling everything else.

And each time I become overwhelmed, my loving husband, as he has done with me each time I get exasperated since he fell in love with me back in 1993, will say some things like these to me:

"We are getting that done. But that is done. Wait, you are worried about that? Honey, there really isn't anything to stress about. Sweetie we've got all that covered. Maybe you should just take a nap?"

And yet I stress.

I've realized that there are things we do well.

And things we don't do well.

And I do not do "events" well.

Looking back over my life, I realize I never have.

Oh people like my events well enough. And they come together well enough. And I can't think of any tragedy or travesty or tumultuous thing that has occurred during an event I have organized.

I just don't like to put them on.

Show up at one? Pay for one? Support one?

Rock on!

But plan one?

Find someone else.
But this Conference, I realized, represents what so many of us are doing and living every day. There are things that are just too hard. There are events that feel too big.

And we feel so small.

Inadequate.

Not enough.

And after it is all said and done, what do we do about that fact?

I choose a lot of ways to cope. And I share my ways in hopes that maybe you can use them to be your ways in facing that thing that is looming over you -- bigger than you are and probably bigger in your mind than it really is.

I talk.
I rest.
I pray.
I run.

Talk: Yesterday I did a lot of talking. I talked to JB. I told him how I felt. He listened. I talked to my mother-in-law and went over all the food plans. I talked to a few close friends and shared how stressed I felt.

Rest: This morning, I woke up at 5am. I felt rested.

Pray: I prayed as I laid in bed, laying around far longer than I normally do.

Run: And then I went for a run.

I ran past our ducks and geese and guinea fowl and turned the corner where the cows were congregating. I heard the all-too-familiar sound of Scrubs' paws padding alongside me, and smiled down at him and said, "Good boy," and kept running as the cows stayed where they were or got out of my way depending on how they felt that morning.

A bunny shot across my path.

He had a cute little white tail.

Arrow Head pond looked so beautiful, a light mist rising just above it, reeds swaying just slightly in the breeze.

Red, the dog that "came with" the farm, but is fed by our neighbors and given treats by us and we don't really know for sure who he belongs to, walked over to greet me. He and Scrubs had a good sniff down.

And I ran home.

I didn't fix anything. I still feel a little overwhelmed today. But I feel a little more prepared to face something that I just know I'm not that good at.